A very intelligent canine. I've gone to court more than Michelle Bachmann, Harriet Miers, and most US Law School professors ever have. I am ghost written by my human companion. I actually live in the Second largest English speaking city at the time of the War for American Independence. These are my opinions and I don't care if you read this. I don't really want to hear from you--unless you agree with me or can offer intelligent and constructive comments. And I refuse to sell out (no ads here).

20 February 2008

More amusing RKBA comments

Making comments that the United States needs gun control is a lightning rod for the RKBA crowd to come and post loads of comments. Another one of these time wasters just posted duplicates of a comment, which I will not post of course, telling me to look at the "peer reviewed" Kleck and Lott articles. Yes, they were peer reviewed and have failed. Kleck and Lott call the other's work crap. So, I am not sure why this person bothers wasting his and others time, but...

I find it especially funny when the RKBA crowd write to foreign journalists. It is especially funny when the RKBA crowd write to British and Australian papers to try and persuade the journos that crime is high in Britain and Australia. Even funnier since the RKBA crowd really put their feet in it by not having the facts straight.

But the RKBA crowd never really does have its facts straight anyway. Probably why they like people like John Lott and Gary Kleck. Both Lott and Kleck sound scientific, but have been pretty much disproved. In fact, if Lott were on the other side of the debate, he would join Michael Bellesisles in the discredited academic department.

The RKBA crowd like to repeat the same things over and over again. I was looking at multiple posts of the same comment on one piece.

I guess the main point is that some people should avoid trying to sound intelligent, especially when they are dealing with people who know they are wrong. The RKBA crowd doesn't have their facts straight on the gun issue in Australia or Britain, but they love to interject nonsense about how the crime rate has gone up.

The problem is that the United States is the only country with an obscure and misunderstood bit of legislation written down on the books that acts as a barrier to any sane gun legislation. No other country, even if they have the same militia tradition, has barriers to firearms legislation.

Britain, not Germany, was the first country to have firearms regulation. This is despite having a similar constitutional guarantee to bear arms in The Bill of Rights from 1689 (1 Will. & Mar. sess. 2 c. 2): That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. Amusingly enough, as in other guarantees of rights, this follows the right to be free of a standing army in time of peace.

Anyway, Britons have never had a "right" to own guns and handgun ownership was pretty rare. In fact, I was amused when I was young, a friend said something about my being from America that I had shot a gun. To which I replied that we had guns and hunted in England as well. My family was of the class of people who had this privilege and ability.

I would like to see more action in the area of gun control, but like the draft and military service, Americans are rather apathetic until something effects them.

Then they become very protective. I find Americans to be a rather self-centred people when it comes to politics.